This is the defacto book for beginners but I've never really been able to parse the format. I've gone through a lot of books and none seem to match the approach (gently, less formal) with some formatting that is easy to ingest.

I do love the Launchpads, and they were a ton of fun to use (the IDE is a beast, though). I'd say starting with Arduino or a Pi before a microcontroller is a natural step for beginners, though.